the pinnacle

Woke up early. I was too excited to go back to sleep. This has been happening for the past three nights. I'm not even leaving until tomorrow. Lately, I've been too excited that I can't even sleep at night. So I read The Watchmen until I got tired. Reading it is exhausting too. You have to look at each shot or storyboard square or whatever for at least 3 minutes to take it all in.

Worked out for 30 minutes (Kuya!), and then made the most delicious breakfast ever. I wish my plates weren't yellow, because this all just looks like a yellow blob. A delicious yellow blob:Made a omelet with mushrooms and stuffed with diced tomato and topped with emmenthal. And then homemade country potatoes that I freaking diced myself. Not store bought. I felt so proud.

I got the inspiration last night at Keisha's when she made dinner. She made the most delicious pasta sauce just from a carton of plain tomato sauce and the stuff she had in her pantry and fridge--olive tapenade, salt, pepper, oregano. It was delicious, and I was inspired to create.

Great night last night. Went over to Keisha's to plan what to do in Amsterdam. Turns out that her plan to take a friend's extra plane ticket didn't work out. So she had to get a train ticket that leaves a day later than ours. So we'll meet in Amsterdam, and Lucia and I will be there a day earlier. She also bought a ticket for the same train back to Paris.

We found our seat numbers in the trains, and then realized that Keisha might not be sitting with us since she bought her ticket a day later than us. We figured maybe we could ask someone to switch with her. We found her seat number for the train back and by some MIRACLE, Keisha is sitting with us in the same train car and row. The seat right after ours. CRAZY. I dont know how that happened. She had no idea where we were sitting, and there she is, right next to us in the same train car and everything.

We were stunned and sat in silence for two seconds before exclaiming, "Whoooaaa!"

“This trip was meant to be!” I said excitedly. “Of all the train cars, of all the seats on a train...you're sitting with us!” We all just smiled and laughed at this freak occurrence. It was destiny. We planned what we'd do in Amsterdam, how we'd get around, how much we figured to spend. When it was all pretty much planned, Keisha said, "What if we went somewhere...every month."

It wasn't a question. I mean, look at the quote, I ended it with a period. The words, the phrasing, the “what if” at the beginning—all that makes it a question. Even if you say it out loud, it's sounds like a question, no doubt about that. But it wasn't a question. Not the way Keisha had said it. Not the way I had heard it, and maybe I'm going crazy or still shaking from the freak train seat moment, but I didn't hear a question. It wasn't something to be thought over, then dismissed and put it away. It was like...a dare. It was something that was going to happen, all because we were crazy enough to go for it. GO big or go home. Lucia and I looked at each other and smiled. We knew without having to say anything.

Where are we going after Amsterdam?

Now that's a question. Two days before leaving for Amsterdam, we were planning Italy week to coincide with our winter breaks and Keisha's mom will be with us too. Fly to Rome for two days, then train to Florence for two days, and then another train to Venice for two days, then fly back to Paris from there. It was beautiful. Simple. And for the month after that, a long weekend to Morocco.

We glowed. I could tell in each of us that we were mentally packing our bags. Thinking of places to see. Foods to eat. I know I was definitely thinking about food. Neither of us expected this to happen. We just got together to plan Amsterdam. Lucia said how that in two days time, we'll be in there. I mentioned that I was still reeling from being asked to go to Amsterdam with them two days before.

Lucia and I left together. Without really thinking, as we descended the staircase I said, "This is the happiest I've ever been." And it truly was, this was the pinnacle of my time here. Was it going to get better than this? It might, it might not. But it really was the happiest. The kind of happiness where you're so excited you're shaking, you can't even think straight. The kind where you can't sleep at night, and it makes you wake up early in the morning to do push-ups and cook omelets.

Something was planned. We were all sure. We were dedicated to this plan taking flight. We were positive, excited. And this trip, it was something we shared, and we all brought goodness to it, great ideas, answers to questions we each brought up. There was a solution, or we resolved to find it. I felt like something was actually happening because we were doing something and not just waiting for it to happen. It's the same exact feeling I get when working with a dedicated film crew who believes in the project, who wants to see this film made by us because it was meant for us and nobody else. This was supposed to happen.